China’s population will continue to shrink

Significance Policies in the 1980s to restrict the birth rate gave China a demographic dividend, with an enlarged working population driving GDP growth, but that has been exhausted. The country faces a shrinking working population and a growing dependent population. This creates economic challenges and threatens the solvency of the pension system. Impacts Manufacturing industry will lean heavily on automation and robotics in response to an increasingly tight labour market. Providing adequate pension and health care provision for the elderly will hobble an already slowing economy. Education provision will have to address older age cohorts, to regularly boost their skills, rather than focusing solely on the young.